• Age

    22

  • Family

    Father, Kurt S. Dzinich Jr.

  • Occupation

    Civil Clerk, Juneau Trial Courts

  • Previous government experience or community involvement

    Student Body President, Juneau-Douglas High School; School Board Student Representative; JDHS Site Council Student Representative; Vice President, Elon Model United Nations Society; Senator, Elon Student Government Association;  Treasurer, Elon Arabic Language Organization

  • Highest level of education

    B.A. Political Science (cum laude), B.A. International Studies (cum laude), Elon University

  • Do you support ballot proposition 1?

    Yes

  • Do you support ballot proposition 2?

    Yes

  • What new quarantine skill or hobby have you acquired over the last few months?

    During quarantine, I worked extremely hard to finish a thesis on Yugoslav history. However, I made as much time as possible to practice piano. As a long-time pianist, I began to explore the fascinating world of piano restoration and have been restoring my own since late-May. I also revived (as best as I could) my written correspondence with friends.

  • Why are you running?

    Why are you running?

    I’m running for District 2 Assembly person because I have been a lifelong, born and raised Juneauite. I deeply care and love this community. My family’s been involved here for a long time and it just means the absolute world to me. I graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School. I was educated here in town. I served as the first openly gay student body president there and then I went on to study International Relations and Political Science at Elon University. And now, after graduating amid the pandemic — cum laude as an Isabella Cannon Leadership fellow — I am more excited than ever and more passionate than ever to be back in town here in the community that I care about and love most, to really try to affect positive change and represent Juneau’s youth as the generation of tomorrow, as the generation that will inherit the impacts of what we choose to do now amid our current circumstances. So that is why I’m running and why I’m asking for the community’s support.

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  • Pandemic response

    Do you think the city’s response to the pandemic has been adequate?

    I do think that the city’s response to the pandemic has been adequate. In a recent forum, I give them an eight out of 10. And this seems to kind of generally fit with what current members of the Assembly said. Obviously, these circumstances could not have been foreseen. And obviously, when people joined the Assembly, ran for the Assembly, they could have never foreseen that they would be dealing with a public health crisis. And given that fact, I think that the City and Borough of Juneau, the Assembly, they did a good job of taking into account Juneau’s unique status as a semi-isolated community. They were proactive, they made science-based decisions and the policies they implemented really did have an impact, especially when you look at COVID transmission rates and death rates in the rest of the country. I think that going forward, there are things to improve upon — more speedy test results, more cohesive policy with travelers. But I think that given their response, I think that it was adequate and I think that it was a good response.

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  • 2021 Cruise Season

    How should the city prepare for the 2021 cruise ship season?

    If you would ask me this question eight months ago, many people in Juneau, myself included, would have made this conversation more focused on ‘how can we respond to saturation of tourism rates?’ I think that question is now somewhat outdated. I think that obviously we knew that we were somewhat dependent on cruise ship passenger revenues. Now that is more apparent than ever. And I think that’s something we need to take into account. I think that going forward, we don’t need to dial down our a relationship with cruise ship passengers. I think that we need to definitely focus on bolstering or returning it to as normal as can be, but I think that we need to learn the lesson here, which is that we need to diversify our economy, we need to help keep Juneauites in Juneau — both young and old — and we need to take tangible steps toward improving opportunities for affordable housing and other metrics which will help improve our economic resilience, which has been sorely demonstrated to be lacking in efficiency.

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  • Housing and Homelessness

    What role should the Assembly play in addressing housing and homelessness issues in the city?

    I think the City and Borough of Juneau has a very active role to play in addressing the issues surrounding housing and homelessness here in town. We at the City and Borough of Juneau, they have the ultimate responsibility ability to address these concerns. I think that not enough attention has been paid in the past to looking at underlying costs. I think that we need to take this time to zoom out a little bit, look for the underlying causes and look where maybe we’re failing some people, some folks in terms of mental health services, affordable housing. But obviously, it never hasn’t been more apparent than people need assistance now.  I think that local businesses are struggling to cope as well. So we need to focus more on emergency short term sheltering and long term affordable housing options. And I think going forward, we have to realize that taxpayer money is better spent when it goes to preventing — helping people experiencing homelessness, rather than focusing on stopgap measures.

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  • Racism

    Does Juneau have a problem with racism? If so, how should the Assembly address it?

    Yes, I think that Juneau has historically and currently had an issue, had a major problem with racism. Just today, I was at the City Museum looking at the exhibit there which focused on the internment of Alaska Native people during World War II. And you know, I just want to say that while we’ve made obvious progress since then, more progress must be made, especially in light of our national dialogue on racial inclusion and social justice. I think that Assembly member Edwardson’s legislation surrounding the systemic racism review committee is robust and an important step forward. But ultimately, it is on the Assembly to respond to the recommendations made by that committee and that’s why I think it’s absolutely essential that our electorate that our elected representatives recognize this issue, and are prepared to respond to the recommendations raised by this committee. So I support the committee and I think that it’s a crucial step forward in addressing where we are with racial politics in Juneau.

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